Bad Romance
"Bad Romance" is a song by American recording artist Lady GaGa. It is the lead single from her second studio album, The Fame Monster. The track was produced by RedOne and was inspired by the paranoia that Gaga had felt while touring through the year 2008–09. After the demo version of the song leaked, Gaga premiered the song at Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2010 show in the Paris Fashion Week, on October 6, 2009, followed by the release of the cover art. "Bad Romance" features a spoken bridge and a full-throated chorus. The song was written by Gaga while touring and was inspired by German house-techno music. Lyrically it talks about being in love with one's best friend. Critics gave positive reviews of "Bad Romance", with majority of them comparing the song to Gaga's second single "Poker Face". "Bad Romance" was a commercial success, reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart, Irish Singles Chart, Canadian Hot 100 and the Swedish, German, Austrian and Danish charts, while peaking at number two in countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The accompanying music video takes place in a white bathhouse where Gaga is kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her, and then sell her off to the Russian Mafia for sexual slavery. The video received positive response for its artistic treatment and innovation; critics complimenting its craziness and symbolic plot. Gaga has performed "Bad Romance" on a number of television shows including Saturday Night Live and Gossip Girl, as well as award shows such as the 2009 American Music Awards. It was the closing song of Gaga's The Monster Ball Tour, where she performed it while standing inside a giant gyroscope. Rolling Stone ranked the song at number nine, on their list of the "25 Best Songs of 2009". Background "Bad Romance" was the first single from The Fame Monster, Gaga's follow-up to her debut album The Fame. Before its official release, a demo version of the song leaked on the internet, prompting Gaga to comment via Twitter, "leaked next single is makin my ears bleed. Wait till you hear the real version." A brief portion of the song was performed on Saturday Night Live on October 3, 2009, along with other songs like "Poker Face" and "Lovegame". "Bad Romance" premiered during the finale of fashion designer Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summerion Week show, on October 6, 2009. The cover art was released on October 15, 2009 and portrayed Gaga in a red dress, with her face down and covered with her dress. Bill Lamb from About.com praised the cover art saying, "Gaga is maintaining her hitting streak of generating powerful images to accompany her music and stage presentations". The official album version of "Bad Romance" was reelase in October 19, 2009. Gaga explained that "Bad Romance" was one of the songs she wrote in 2008 while touring. The songs were all about the various "monsters" (paranoias) she had faced during the time. One of those was the "love monster" and the inspiration for "Bad Romance". In Grazia magazine, Gaga further explained her inspiration, "I wrote Romance when I was in Norway, on my tour bus. I was in Russia, then Germany, and spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe. There is this amazing German house-techno music, so I wanted to make a pop experimental record. I kind of wanted to leave the '80s a little bit, so the chorus is a '90s melody, which is what the inspiration was. There was certainly some whisky involved in the writing of the record. It's about being in love with your best friend." Critical Reception "Bad Romance" received positive reviews from critics. Bill Lamb from About.com commented that "Lady Gaga's singing is at its best so far here as she moves from threatening to floating sweetness and back again. ... If you had any fears that Gaga would be one album flash in the pan, the room filling beats and melodies of 'Bad Romance' should help dispel them." He also listed the song as one of the top tracks from The Fame Monster. Gil Kaufman from MTV commented that the "minimal beat the song stays at a low boil for most, ... rising up in an ecstatic, Erasure-esque throb during the chorus, but lacking the immediate pull of some of Gaga's biggest hits to date".Daniel Kreps from Rolling Stone, while writing about the song's initial leak, felt that the song was comparable to "Poker Face" and was not on par with her other singles. In a later review, Jon Dolan from Rolling Stone said that "'Bad Romance' makes Gaga's name a Teutonic chant", referring to her emerging popularity. Christopher John Farley from The Wall Street Journal praised the catchiness of the hook of "Bad Romance".21 Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine called the song as one of the album's highlights and explained that "if melodies could be time-stamped, this would have '80s branded on ass". Simon Price from The Independent said that the first line of the song "I want your ugly, I want your disease" set the tone for the gothic nature of The Fame Monster. Kitty Empire of The Guardian felt that singles like "Bad Romance" make Gaga more comparable with Madonna. Paul Lester from BBC called the song "cheesy" and felt that it is comparable to the music of Andy Warhol. Mikale Wood of Los Angeles Times called the song "Europoppy". Edna Gundersen of USA Today said that "Synth-powered 'Bad Romance' is a ferocious club thumper with a sordid underbelly". Michael Hubbard from MusicOMH felt that the chorus of the song is Gaga's best one yet. Monica Herrera from Billboard was of the opinion that "Bad Romance" was not as catchy as Gaga's previous songs, but it had "wicked" sex appeal. Pitchfork Media placed "Bad Romance" at number 39 in their top 100 tracks of 2009, saying it was "epic in construction". The Boston Public Health Commission rated "Bad Romance" as number ten on their list of "Top 10 List of Songs with Unhealthy Relationship Ingredients". Music Video Development During an interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga confirmed that film director Francis Lawrence had directed the music video and that she was impressed with the final version.52 She explained, "I knew Lawrence's ability as a director is so much higher than what I could do."53 Her creative team Haus of Gaga managed the art direction for the video.52 The music video premiered on November 10, 2009. Gaga commented on her experience of working with Lawrence, "I wanted somebody with a tremendous understanding of how to make a pop video, because my biggest challenge working with directors is that I am the director and I write the treatments and I get the fashion and I decide what it's about and it's very hard to find directors that will relinquish any sort of input from the artist. ... But Francis and I worked together. ... It was collaborative. He's a really pop video director and a filmmaker. He did I Am Legend and I'm a huge Will Smith fan, so I knew he could execute the video in a way that I could give him all my weirdest, most psychotic ideas, ... But it would come across to and be relevant to the public."53 Gaga created a pair of razor-blade sunglasses—which she believed it portrayed tough female spirit—to wear in the video. She emphasized that "I wanted to design a pair for some of the toughest chicks and some of my girlfriends ... they used to keep razor blades in the side of their mouths, ... That tough female spirit is something that I want to project. It's meant to be, 'This is my shield, this is my weapon, this is my inner sense of fame, this is my monster.'"53 The white latex suits in the video were designed from the character Max's wolf costume for the movie Where the Wild Things Are.54 She also wore Alexander McQueen's 12-inch (300 mm) high shoes.55 Concept EnlargeGaga lying on a bed beside the burnt skeleton of her customer. She wears a pyrotechnic bra and smokes a cigarette.The main idea behind the video is that of Gaga getting kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her, and then sell her off to the Russian Mafia. It takes place in a fluorescent white bathhouse.5356 The video begins with Gaga sitting in a white throne, wearing a golden dress and glasses made from razor blades. She is surrounded by several people and a pair of harlequin Great Dane. She has her finger on the mute button of an MP3 speaker, and when she releases it, "Bad Romance" begins to play. Sunlight begins to pan across the walls of a bath house activating the fluorescent lighting, and a sign is shown that reads: "Bath Haus of GaGa". A group of dancers wearing white long-sleeved leotards with knee high boots and matching crowns crawl out of white, egg-shaped pods. The center pod has the word "Mons†er" written on it, and Gaga emerges from it wearing a similar outfit to the dancers, who begin to dance behind her. The scene alternate with two other scenes of Gaga in a bathtub and standing in front of a mirror. When the chorus of the song begins, two women pull her out of a bathtub, rip her clothes off and force her to drink a glass of vodka. As the second verse begins, Gaga, wearing a diamond-covered outfit complete with a crown, seductively dances for a group of men bidding for her. She straddles one of the men, played by Slovenian model Jurij Bradač,57 and performs a lap dance on him. Afterwards, he raises his bid and becomes the highest bidder for her. When the chorus is played for the third time, Gaga is shown wearing a faux polar bear hide jacket. She walks toward the man, who is sitting on a bed while unbuttoning his shirt. Gaga has a look of indifference on her face and removes her jacket and sunglasses. Suddenly, the bed spontaneously combusts with the man still sitting on it. The video ends with Gaga lying beside a smoldering skeleton, on top of the destroyed bed with ashes everywhere. She smokes a cigarette, while her pyrotechnic bra activates. Reception Tim Stack from Entertainment Weekly compared some of the dance choreography of the video with the music video of "Thriller". He said, "I don't think Gaga has ever looked prettier than in the close-ups where she's more stripped down."58 Jennifer Cady of E! was also impressed by the video and commented, "This music video really makes us appreciate everything Gaga actually brings to pop music. She's exciting to watch, plain and simple. ... We need someone like Gaga to really bring it. To put actual thought and care into her product so that it feels alive."59 Daniel Kreps from Rolling Stone felt that the scenes from the music video were reminiscent of the work of Stanley Kubrick. He added that in "Bad Romance", Gaga portrays her craziest ideas yet.60 Jocelyn Vena from MTV believed that the video was symbolic and portrayed that "the old Gaga is over, here's the brand-new Gaga: the one who seems to delight in pushing the boundaries and exploring all manner of sexual proclivities." She further believed that the video was a testament to Gaga's brilliance "as an artist that uses the video artform as the jump-off point for the next leg of their career."61 The Wall Street Journal noted Gaga as one of the few pop stars of present time, who really understood spectacle, fashion, shock, choreography—all the things Madonna and Michael Jackson were masters of in the 1980s.21 Bill Lamb from About.com wrote that "like the song video blasts at your senses until you are just left drowning in the audio and visual power of it all." Cover Versions On November 18, 2009, a video was uploaded to YouTube with Gia Farrell performing an acoustic cover of the track.75 On March 14, 2010, Marco Hietala from Nightwish covered the song in Kuorosota.76 Hayley Williams, the lead singer from the band Paramore covered a piano version of the song and posted it on her Twitter on March 28, 2010.7778 On March 29, 2010, 30 Seconds to Mars covered the song in BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.7980 Glee performed it on one of the episodes titled Theatricality; it was a group number where the actors donned Lady Gaga outfits. When glee club New Directions member Rachel Berry discovers that rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline are planning on performing a Lady Gaga number at Regionals, the character Will (Matthew Morrison) sets the club a Gaga assignment. The girls and Kurt then create costumes inspired by Gaga and perform "Bad Romance".81 Evil Adam covered the song and made it available to stream and download.